by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our weekly recap of this week's new music. We're sharing our favorite releases of the week in the form of albums, singles, and music videos along with the "Further Listening" section of new and notable releases from around the web. It's generally written in the early hours of the morning and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking out all the music we've included. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.

*Disclaimer: We are making a conscious effort not to include any artist in our countdown on back-to-back weeks in order to diversify the feature, so be sure to check the "Further Listening" as well because it's often of top-notch quality too.

BAD HISTORY MONTH | “Touch The Riff”

With God Is Luck due out later this month, Bad History Month is sharing his latest single, “Touch The Riff,” one of the more straight forward love songs in the BHM/FHM catalog. It balances joy and mystery, the desire to hold back and keep things in a prospective state. There’s an ease to the recording, Sean Sprecher’s vocals taking on the gentle guide to letting the chips fall where they may, taking risk in the name of potential happiness. It’s a nice sentiment and one that doesn’t seem to be overloaded in thought. With doubled vocals and guitars that move forward and backward in time, the song careens with a close mic’d folk feel, fluttering like leaves in the wind, the contemplative detachment bested by earnest emotion and the poetic nature of Bad History Month. God Is Luck explores a vast world of dynamic songwriting, patched and glued together in a way that feels entirely natural, created nuanced and textured songs that are equally resonant when performed acoustic and solo.

BED BITS | “Secret Life”

Having made the move from Brattleboro to Los Angeles, former Happy Jawbone member Alex Edgeworth is making radiant art-pop with minimalist psych design and touches of avant-folk rock as Bed Bits. The project sounds both majestic and magnetic, whimsical but utterly engaging. There’s a real shimmer to her songs, sweet and charming, with attention to tonality and the detail in her warped and weaving recordings. Her new self-titled album, due out September 27th via I’m Into Life Records (Open Head, The Lentils, Jolee Gordon), is great from start to finish, it’s shape in fluid motion, never settling into a singular pocket, but retaining the animated world of Edgeworth’s surrealist charms. “Secret Life” keeps that spark alive with a simplistic time keeping beat and a rubbery guitar line that feels bent at all times, retraining our senses to follow in curved patterns. It’s another piece of subtle brilliance, a feeling that pop is meant to be skewed toward stranger directions, that groove can and should be altered into tightly wound exuberance.

CLASS | “Behind The Ball”

CLASS’ But Who’s Reading Me? EP, released back in February was an early highlight of the then new year. The Tucson, AZ based punk band has proven over the past year that they’re seemingly capable of anything, mixing power-pop, SST style punk, garage rock, scuzzy glam, and more into their swirl of tattered yet memorable charm. Their songs are impossibly catchy but also dynamic, due in part to the band’s triple songwriter approach. If You’ve Got Nothing, their second full length, is due out October 6th via Feel It Records (Citric Dummies, Leopardo, Alicja-Pop), drawing from their latest EP and beyond, with guitars that burn like sun spots in your eyes, and hooks galore. “Behind The Ball” is the record’s lead single, has a burning power-pop riff and a mountainous chorus that feels designed to be played on repeat. This is punk at it’s utmost catchy, the melodies burrowing in for life. “Raised on too much jubilee,” indeed.

EXEK | “It’s Just A Flesh Wound, Darling”

While there are plenty of bands making synth led post-punk, Melbourne’s EXEK have always managed to stand apart from the pack, their sound driven by a sardonic sophistication amid skittering rhythms and layers that sort of evolve in real time. Their latest album, The Map And The Territory, set for release on October 6th via the band’s own Foreign Records, suggests a peeled back approach to their sound, but one listen to “It’s Just A Flesh Wound, Darling” proves that the layers aren’t so easily divided, bursting like sunspots after weeks spent in the shadows. Albert Wolski and co. continue to take an alien approach to punk, surging with a wash of synthy surrealism, the keys whirring and sputtering between textural bliss and shapes that seem bent toward their breaking point. The vocal melodies are impossibly engaging, bringing the cosmic nature of their deep space drift into human territory, grounded it while forever pulling towards the sky’s expanse.

JALEN NGONDA | “Come Around and Love Me” LP

London via DC musician Jalen Ngonda takes us back to the glory days of soul music, channeling the sound and feel of Motown, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green on his stellar debut album, Come Around and Love Me. Out via Daptone Records and featuring production from Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires), this one feels like a long lost gem of the early 70’s, with Ngonda’s vocal performance really highlighting the strength and emotion in his voice, falsetto croon and scratchy sincerity resting side by side over timeless instrumentals. While the album deals primarily in love songs, there are plenty of moods explored from the silky funk of “If You Don’t Want My Love” to slow candlelit saunter of “It Takes A Fool,” a song that feels pulled from Curtis Mayfield’s discography. Ngonda isn’t simply retreading on the past though, he’s offering his own modern reshaping of soul, paying dues to the legends while shining a light on his talent.

MCLUSKY | “Unpopular Parts of a Pig / The Digger You Deep“ EP

There’s little that can prepare you for the first new mclusky songs in nineteen years, you know… aside from the five Future of the Left and seven Christian Fitness albums released in the years since. Something feels different about a mclusky release though (even if it’s mclusky* with Damien Sayell on bass), there’s a sort of momentous energy that results in Jack Egglestone and Andrew Falkous’ return to their most beloved project. When they announced their US tour last year it was briefly mentioned they’d be recording a new album, and while that tour was put on pause due to some inner ear issues, it hasn’t stopped the band from recording a handful of songs, released as duel single (as in two a-sides, and convientantly, two b-sides). While we have a proper review of the EP forthcoming, we’d be remiss not to give these songs proper mention. Tapping into Falco’s sardonic humor and a deranged sort of noise rock detachment, the four songs come with dense structure, biting lyrics, and abrasive tonality. They’re weird, they’re funny, they rip.

MELENAS | “K2”

As we’ve mentioned before, the upcoming Melenas record, Ahora, is a bit of a departure for the Spanish quartet, moving from the clamoring guitars of Dias Raros to something more hypnotic. With the album out September 29th via Trouble In Mind Records (Sunwatchers, The Serfs, Onyon), they’ve embraced synths and motorik rhythms, finding their way through krautrock landscapes that allow their songs a sense of splendor. The forms evolve over repetition, “K2” a perfect example with bouncing bass and layered vocals, swirling toward something ever more majestic as the song expands. Synths come squiggling over the song’s dreamy framework, pushing the progression further into kosmiche territory but keeping the pop form at the forefront. There’s a lot to love about the hypnotic wonder of “K2,” a song with a steady pulse and catchy melodies, sweet, driving, and transcendent from start to finish.

R.M.F.C. | “The Trap”

Following a string of great EPs, singles, and splits, Sydney’s R.M.F.C. (Rock Music Fan Club… if you choose to believe) is set to release their first full length album, appropriately titled Club Hits. Due out November 3rd via Anti Fade Records (Alien Nosejob, Vintage Crop, The Prize) and Urge Records (Tube Alloys, Optic Nerve, Carnations), the solo project of Buz Clatworthy has become known for making post-punk with infectious hooks, songs that rattle in your mind for weeks on end. Following last year’s great “Access” single, “The Trap” is the record’s official lead single, a song that bends between wiry punk and austere minimalism, ripping hard into jangly territory one moment and sort of zoning into the low-end the next. The riffs are exceptionally catch and Clatworthy’s tight drumming keeps everything spinning on its axis. The whole thing clangs and clinks like thunder hitting steel, but R.M.F.C. never lose their scrappy focus.

RAISALKA | “Sugarhole”

The past five years have been relatively dormant for Baked, but Isabella Ronayne (née Mingione) has managed to stay busy with her own band Raisalka, giving her songs a chance to really evolve. Seeing the Brooklyn based band live offers a chance to witness their three guitar approach, flooding intimate venues with permeating riffs and guitar harmonies that hit like tidal waves. Set to release their debut album, Auratone, the record finds Ronayne joined by Lucia Arias (Anna Altman), Leslie Hong (Haybaby), and Charlotte Kahn (Fraidycat, Snakeskin), a collection of DIY all-stars. “Sugarhole,” the band’s debut single is bursting with a woozy perma-stoned flood of guitars, enveloping the mix between verses, but pulling back to allow for Ronayne’s impassioned vocals to shine amid the churning distortion. There’s almost a classic grunge feel to the song’s structure, with big ol’ riffs and even bigger vocal melodies, but the song is bright and bold in a way that feels displaced from time.

ROME STREETZ | “Hell Backwards”

New York City’s Rome Streetz is one of the underground’s best, a rapper that keeps his head down and his pen blazing. He’s a lyricist that can play to the streets and write bars that’ll have you scratching your head. He’s released over a dozen albums in the past five years, a scorched earth trail of hard rhymes over cold boom-bap beats. He doesn’t need to be flashy, his delivery and lyrics do all the stunting necessary. After great collaborative albums with DJ Muggs, Futurewave, Ransom, Big Ghost LTD, and his Griselda debut, Rome Streetz is returning to his Noise Kandy series with Noise Kandy 5, due out September 29th. That record’s first single, “Hell Backwards” is a perfect example of why Rome Streetz sits among the best, it’s a chance for him to go hard, his flow relentlessly weaving around stuttered drums, changing up his cadence as he waxes on envy, longevity, and the struggles of daily life.

Further Listening:

SEPTEMBER 04 - SEPTEMBER 10:

SEPTEMBER 11 - SEPTEMBER 17:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (September 4th - September 17th)